Apparently Strongsync was just released by the developer of Expandrive
Is it as big a deal as they suggest?
Thoughts?
Set things up and canât login through the app or the website. Hopefully just teething issues. I like that I can leverage cloud storage as an âextensionâ of my device rather than just a could copy. Should be great for people that want stick with smaller SSD in devices but access lots of cloud storage.
Looks nice and seems functional so far. Iâm not a heavy enough user of any of those sync services to be a customer, which is not a knock on them at all.
Pricing is interesting. $50 for the license, and then you choose either to be billed $25/year after the first year for updates (checkout total: $50), or $99 for lifetime updates (checkout total: $50+$99 for $149.) Four years to recuperate is a relatively generous annual fee, or a burdensome one-time cost, depending on your view of the softwareâs value.
Where did it get stuck exactly? (I write the app)
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Any idea whether this is diferent/better than Smart Sync with Dropbox Smart Sync lets you work without limits ? Is this a simliar competitor or an advance beyond it?
Itâs very similar to Smartsync, and their Smartsync will use this File Provider technology before too long. As 3rd party kernel extensions are on their way out.
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At login âŚIâve tried to reset my password and have no received the link. Iâll reboot and see if Iâve got better luck.
Whatâs the security and encryption story?
Everything over HTTPS, no intermediate servers, all auth done via ouath and API tokens stored in keychain.
Hereâs some prior discussion including ExpanDrive.
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@hemancuso whatâs the ETAš on Dropbox support? I was surprised to see that it launched without supporting what I assume is the biggest sync service out there, certainly top two.
š I realize you probably canât give an exact timeline, and everything is subject to change, but do you think it will be days? weeks? months? âsometime in 2021â ;-?
Also - welcome to the forums! Always glad to see developers engaging with the community.
Maybe Dropbox is giving them pushback because this competes too strongly with Dropboxâs own product?
I have purchased ExpanDrive years ago, and I have a lifetime license. Every time I decide to use it for something that is critical for me, it fails big time. Support was never helpful, they respond, but they never fixed my sync issues.
I will be really reluctant before purchasing another software from ExpanDrive.
Sorry @hemancuso, all respect you personally, those were my concerns about the company.
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I share those concerns. Most recently was when I discovered that editing a .pages file on Dropbox didnât work reliably. We exchanged a few emails but nothing happened.
I purchased a lifetime license back in 2014 and canât remember a time that I ever used it and it worked reliably.
Maybe this new file provider API from Apple will work better (although my experience with iCloud Drive doesnât fill me with confidence) but this new app really feels like a new version of ExpanDrive.
If it works Iâll be glad to pay for it. But Iâm definitely at a âwait and seeâ point.
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Thanks for sharing, at least I know I am not alone.
I will gladly pay for a Family license with lifetime if it works well.
Apparently now Strongsync supports Dropbox as well
The big question to me is - is there a meaningful benefit of Strongsync over Expandrive?
Is this basically an upgrade of Expandrive using a new software framework Apple now supports, or is it truly a different and much improved application?
I started using this last night, so it isnât a full review, just an initial impression.
Dropbox support in Strongsync seems to work every bit as well and as fast as Dropbox natively if you use âSmart Syncâ and donât have everything syncâd locally.
The main benefit here is that you donât need to have the Dropbox app installed, itâs native on Apple Silicon, and it is using Appleâs recommended âFile Providerâ APIs (or something, the point is that theyâre doing this the way Apple wants you to do this).
(Side note: The fact that Dropbox is still not native on Apple Silicon and that Dropbox, Inc. has been completely silent on this issue makes me think they realize itâs going to be awhile. The problem is that now it has been awhile, and they still have nothing to show for it, not even a beta. Iâm sure theyâll get there eventually, but will it be a week? A month? 6 months? Then again, Google Drive doesnât work at all on M1 Macs. At least Dropbox works in Rosetta.)
There are some rough spots. For example, moving a large folder from one folder to another gives you a âprogress barâ which basically tells you nothing other than âplease waitâ with no clue how long it will take to finish.
The website and company is clearly set up to sell one product (ExpanDrive) and now theyâve added a second one, but you see âExpanDriveâ in a lot of places where it should be âStrongsyncâ â including when you go to authorize it to Dropbox.
The whole website is a mess, actually. They have information about ExpanDrive and Strongsync intermixed, so itâs easy to be looking for Strongsync info and suddenly realize you are reading something about ExpanDrive instead.
Last night when I went to the website looking for information about the Dropbox integration, there was none. No blog post, nothing. Even the Strongsync webpage still listed Dropbox support as âcoming soonâ.
If Iâm honest, Strongsync seems more like a new generation of ExpanDrive. I believe the app is completely new, or almost completely new, so I didnât mind paying for a second app, assuming that the app succeeds and exists for as long as ExpanDrive does.
I donât know this for a fact, but I would be willing to believe that Strongsync could eventually replace ExpanDrive. Once Strongsync supports all of the services that ExpanDrive supports, I donât know why the developer would keep supporting both apps. I also think that Strongsync will work better than ExpanDrive, precisely because it is using Appleâs own technology rather than trying to âbolt onâ this functionality.
Two key assumptions / requirements: Apple has to keep supporting and maintaining this, and Strongsync needs to keep up with whatever changes happen to the services and with Appleâs APIs. If that happens, this could be the best way to access cloud storage on the Mac⌠but at this point itâs very early, and definitely too early to tell.
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Thanks
I use a non-M1 Mac
My main reason to wonder about this is that my Dropbox has notably more than the max # of files Dropbox recomends (I think they say their max is a bout 500,000 and I have abouto 2 million files or so). Even with Selective Sync it can slow things down notably
ExpanDrive never did well with a large Dropbox account either.
Is there reason to believe Strongsync would be better in this situation?
I am not an expert here but from what I can tell, Strongsync seems to be fetching directories as needed. This is fast although a bit slower than normal at first. But it makes me think that it might only be biting off what it can chew. So as long as you donât have a huge amount of files in one directory I think it should work better. But thatâs mostly a guesstimate.
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It appears that Strongsync is basically providing âOptimize Mac Storageâ functionality for multiple cloud storage systems (i.e download a file when needed, return it to the cloud when done, etc.). If so, this means any files not present on local storage cannot be backed up. Correct?
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